University of Sydney Students' Representative Council
The University of Sydney Students' Representative Council (SRC) is the representative body for undergraduate students at the University of Sydney.
Contents |
[edit] Structure
The SRC is governed by the Council, which consists of 33 Representatives elected annually by undergraduate students. The Council meets once a month. It is the supreme decision-making body in the SRC.
The Executive of the SRC is elected annually by the Council, and consists of the President, Vice-President, General Secretary, and five general members, elected proportionally out of Council. Meeting weekly, the Executive makes most significant decisions regarding the SRC.
The day-to-day operation of the SRC is generally conducted by paid staff and paid office-bearers, being the President (directly elected by students), the General Secretary, the Education Officer(s), and Women's Officer(s).
Annual elections are held in September each year, to elect the Council, the President, 7 NUS delegates, and the editors of Honi Soit, the student newspaper. Unlike most student organisations, other office-bearers are elected by the Council, and not directly by students. All undergraduate students have a right to vote in annual elections.
[edit] History
The SRC was founded in the late 1920s, and is one of the oldest student organisations in Australia. The SRC was prominent in student campaigns against the war in Vietnam and numerous other political issues. The SRC was also deeply involved in the campaign to create the separate Political Economy department within the School of Economics in the late 1970s.
[edit] Past SRC Presidents
| Name | Year | Grouping |
|---|---|---|
| J.M. Gosper | 1930 | |
| Frank Wood Bayldon | 1931 | |
| V.J. Flynn | 1932 | |
| C.R. Laverty | 1933 | |
| J. Bowie-Wilson | 1934 | |
| D.R. Lewis | 1935 | |
| G.P. Campbell | 1936 | |
| Kevin Ellis | 1937-38 | |
| P.J. Kenny | 1938 | |
| W. Granger | 1939 | |
| J.H.E. Mackay | 1940 | |
| J.S. Collings | 1941-42 | |
| P.P. Manzie | 1942 | |
| Moya McDade | 1943 | |
| Keith Dan | 1944 | |
| Marnie Watt | 1945 | |
| John Nash | 1946 | |
| John Redrup | 1947 | |
| Ted McWhinney | 1948 | |
| Alan Beattie | 1949 | |
| Jim Brassil | 1950 | |
| Peter J. Curtis | 1951 | |
| Phillip Jeffrey | 1952 | |
| Gregory Bartels | 1953 | |
| Philip Berthon-Jones | 1954 | |
| Greg Dunne | 1955 | |
| Tony Reading | 1956 | |
| Jim Carlton | 1957 | |
| Malcolm Brown | 1958 | |
| Brian L. Hennessy | 1958 | |
| M.G.I. Davey | 1959 | |
| Robert J. Wallace | 1960 | |
| Peter Wilenski | 1961 | |
| John Boyd | 1962 | |
| Michael Kirby | 1963-64 | |
| Bob McDonald | 1964 | |
| Michael A. Weber | 1965 | |
| J. Richard Walsh | 1965-66 | |
| Geoffrey Robertson | 1966-67 | |
| Alan Cameron | 1967-68 | |
| Jim Spigelman | 1968-69 | |
| Percy Allan | 1969-70 | |
| Barry Robinson | 1970 | |
| Chris Beale | 1970-71 | |
| Chris Sidoti | 1971-72 | |
| Brett Mattes | 1974 | |
| John McGrath | 1975 | |
| David Patch | 1976 | |
| Peter Byrnes | 1977[1] | |
| Barbara Ramjan | 1977-1978 | |
| Tony Abbott | 1979 | Democratic Labor Party |
| Paul Brereton | 1980-81 | Centre Unity |
| Paul Rickard | 1982 | |
| John Martin | 1983 | |
| Belinda Neal | 1984 | Centre Unity |
| Mark Heyward | 1985 | Liberal |
| Helen Spowart | 1986 | Labor Left |
| Joe Hockey | 1987 | Liberal |
| Liz Gardiner | 1988 | Left Alliance |
| Rod McDonald | 1989 | Left Alliance |
| Vanessa Chan | 1990 | Left Alliance |
| Caitlin Vaughan | 1991 | Left Alliance |
| Amanda Lees | 1992 | Left Alliance |
| Anna Davis | 1993 | Left Alliance |
| Heidi Norman | 1994 | Left Alliance |
| Nadya Haddad | 1995 | Left Alliance |
| Catherine Burnheim | 1996 | Left Alliance |
| Katrina Curry | 1997 | Left Alliance |
| Adair Durie | 1998[2] | Students First (Liberal) |
| Luke Whitington | 1998-1999[3] | Labor Left |
| Natasha Verco | 2000 | National Broad Left / Activist Left |
| Moksha Watts | 2001 | Labor Left |
| Daniel Kyriacou | 2002 | Labor Left |
| Jo Haylen | 2003 | Labor Left |
| Felix Eldridge | 2004 | Labor Left |
| Rose Jackson | 2005 | Labor Left |
| Nick Wood | 2006 | Labor Left |
| Angus McFarland | 2007 | Labor Left |
| Kate Laing | 2008 | Labor Left |
| Noah White | 2009 | Labor Left |
| Elly Howse | 2010 | Labor Left |
| Donherra (Dee) Walmsley | 2011 | Labor Left |
| Phoebe Drake | 2012 | Labor Left |
- ^ Peter Byrnes resigned midway through his term, and was replaced by Barbara Ramjan. Ramjan subsequently won election to the presidency in her own right.
- ^ Adair Durie was removed from office following the 1997 election.
- ^ Luke Whitington was elected in the 1998 by-election following the removal of Adair Durie, and was elected again at the 1998 general election to serve in 1999.
Prominent former Presidents of the SRC include cabinet ministers, Justices of the High Court of Australia and Members of Parliament. Presidents of the SRC have regularly gone on to become President of the National Union of Students, with the 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007 Presidents being immediately elected to the peak office in NUS.
[edit] Functions
The SRC focuses its work on lobbying the university to uphold student rights and maintain fair and accessible education, rather than directly providing services. This sets it apart from the University of Sydney Union, which administers Clubs and Societies, provides food services, and runs the Manning, Holme and Wentworth buildings. However, the SRC does exercise control over certain student services: its caseworkers give free advice on legal issues, Centrelink and conflicts between students and university administration, and it runs a second-hand bookshop. It also publishes Honi Soit, Australia's only remaining weekly student newspaper, as well as Growing Strong, the Women's handbook and the Orientation Handbook.
The SRC is also home to broader political campaigns organised around its mass-member collectives, which are highly involved in the movements for free speech, free education, women's and queer liberation and compulsory student unionism. It has collectives in the areas of Education, Women's, Queer, Environment, Humanitarian Aid and Anti-Racism, and co-ordinates its activism with the National Union of Students.
[edit] Politics
From the mid-1960s the SRC has been at the centre of student activism in Australia. Most activist groupings in the National Union of Students have a presence at Sydney University, such as National Labor Students, Centre Unity (Labor Right), the Greens, Grassroots Left and several factions of the Liberals, although since 2010 there has been a noted absence of the Socialist Alternative on campus.
Since 2000 the SRC has been controlled by what is now National Labor Students (formerly the National Organisation of Labor Students), the student arm of Labor's Socialist Left. Prior to that, from the late 1980s until 1997, the SRC was controlled by the Left Alliance, a former NUS faction made up of a coalition students to the left of Labor such as Socialist Alternative, Grassroots Left style groupings and what would later become Solidarity.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
